Necron Unit of the Week Series: Chronomancer

[NTaW]

NECRON UNIT OF THE WEEK SERIES

Welcome to the Necron Unit of the Week series for 10th edition! Each week will see a different unit from the Codex, Imperial Armour, and Legends datasheets featured for discussion. The goal here is to discover and chronicle tactics for the featured unit so that new players and veterans alike can use this database to inform their strategies with the wider knowledge of the forum. The game of Warhammer 40,000 is ever changing though, and as the rules evolve throughout the edition everyone should feel free to return to older threads with the release of new FAQs/errata, changes in points values, information gathered from games played, and of course the Codex being released. These threads are also great places for newcomers to the Necrons to post their questions about tactics related to the featured units.

Please note that the purpose of this series is not to lament what the current meta deems “ineffective”, or that another unit “does it better”. Those units will get their own threads.

 

This week’s unit is:

Chronomancer

 

How useful have you found the Timesplinter Mantle and Chronometron abilities?

What are your preferred units to accompany?

Do you combo up with a Royal Warden or Noble?

Are there any stratagems to keep in mind?

 

 

Series Index

[Marshal Mittens]

I think its useful in some builds.

 

Move, shoot, move Iis useful in some situations.

 

I think its biggest drawback is that it competes for a slot with the technomancer. Almost every unit I would take a Chronomancer in, I would rather have a technomancer. 

[N1SB]

Exec Summary: I think the Chronomancer may be being overlooked because Necrons are really SLOW.

 

I just played my 1st 10th ed game with 1 Chronomancer, and it actually changed my thinking quite a bit.  It was only by chance I took it, with low expectations, because I was making a simple conversion and the base size and points cost and our store's Crusade list requirements happened to fit it.  My ideal choice would've been a Technomancer.

 

So I agree with Brother Mittens.  The Technomancer is the default, de facto choice imho, for about the same points cost, for good reason.

 

As soon as I played the 1st Phase of my 1st Turn, suddenly I felt there is value in the Chronomancer: Necron Infantry is really SLOW.

 

 

While list-building, I thought the Chronomancer's -1 To Hit his unit was the only real benefit.  While playing, that extra movement is what I loved.

The Chronomancer is like an alternative to a Ghost Ark, like an Open Topped Vehicle you can shoot out of...but is a guy.  (Badly worded, but true.)

 

You know when we do Mathhammer, we kinda focus on the killing and survivability stats, but under-value things like Movement and Objective Control?  This is a little bit like that.  Movement is what gets you on Objectives, gets you into Melee which is sometimes the safest place to be in.  Chronomancer helps with this.

 

For example, if the very fast-moving Scarabs had Objective Control in this edition so that they would be your go-to Objective-capturing units, Chronomancer would be completely worthless probably.  But the GW Game Studio Devs deliberately made it so they weren't, it seems...so Chronomancer attached to Warriors, Immortals, Lychguard do have a role.

 

I came from playing Nurgle Daemons in 8th and 9th, who are also slow.  We would've loved a Chronomancer-like Character.  We would pay points for a HQ unit that could move a Great Unclean One faster by 1 inch.  Doubling a Necron unit's Movement...whoa, very jealous.

 

The most likely trade-off is still probably between the Technomancer and the Chronomancer, I think.  And I think the decision will come down to this:

 

I still think the consensus choice is Technomancer, as Brother Mittens says.  But if you find a unit where survivability hasn't been an issue, but Movement is, like that unit is never where you feel it should be to be useful, then considering swapping out the default, de facto Technomancer with a Chronomancer and if it works better for you.

[Tyriks]

I wanted to come back to this because I have been using Chronomancers more and more lately.  They do help a lot with mobility if you get a chance to shoot with the unit.  I have been trying this with Veil of Darkness to deep strike near an objective, shoot whatever is on it, then march forward to try to steal it.  This worked alright in my last game but my opponent mostly stayed in his DZ so I didn't really have an ideal target.  Everywhere I might have tried this was wide open to lots of counter attacks, but it did still get me his home objective for a turn or two.  I want to mess around with the idea more, but it might be better to put the veil elsewhere and keep it cheaper.